


My Tears Will Be a River, and Then We All Shall Drown

by Cumberbatch Critter (ivelostmyspectacles)



Series: DouWata 30 Day OTP Challenge [25]
Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Making Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 16:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4672925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivelostmyspectacles/pseuds/Cumberbatch%20Critter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Compliant to the scene in the manga/OVA where Doumeki sees Watanuki on the riverbank with the dead kitten.</p><hr/><p>He leaned over and scooped Watanuki's bag from the mud. "Come on," he repeated.</p><p>If he didn't make Watanuki move now, Doumeki was suddenly afraid that this boy wouldn't ever move again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Tears Will Be a River, and Then We All Shall Drown

**Author's Note:**

> I think I may have fucked up the timeline. Look, I read this series and for some reason I don't retain the timeline, but I liked this idea, so it's canon compliant enough. They can't have known each other too much before this scene happened, if at all.
> 
> I do not own _xxxHoLic_. Thanks for reading!

Doumeki shouldn't have gotten involved. He didn't want to get involved, and he was certain that Watanuki hadn't wanted him to get involved. But he couldn't help himself, and before he knew it, he was down on the enbankment, holding his umbrella over Watanuki's already soaking wet form.

It wouldn't help.

He did it, anyway.

Watanuki turned his gaze away from the limp animal cradled in his arms, glancing up at Doumeki. He didn't say anything, and didn't react, which was unnerving from the boy that Doumeki had come to know as the school spazz. He was soaked from head to toe, his hair plastered to his head in limp strands, water dripping from the sleeves of his uniform. His eyes were red as he dropped his gaze and looked back at the kitten.

He was going to be down sick, and so was Doumeki. The heavy rain was already saturating his jacket. He didn't take the protection of his umbrella back, though.

"Come on."

Watanuki looked up at him again. He looked dazed, with all of the fight drained from his unusually expressive eyes. "What...?" he asked, voice hoarse, and he didn't clear his throat.

"It needs to find peace."

Watanuki just looked at him for a long moment. And then his eyes widened infinitesimally, and he jerked his attention away, but not before Doumeki noticed the tears building in his eyes.

He didn't say anything about it.

He just pushed ahead with speaking, usually Watanuki's forte, and directed their stillness into action. "We can bury it at my temple." He leaned over and scooped Watanuki's bag from the mud. "Come on," he repeated.

If he didn't make Watanuki move now, Doumeki was suddenly afraid that this boy wouldn't ever move again.

And that was completely terrifying.

They walked in silence, once Doumeki had coerced him into moving at all, the kitten still tucked in his arms and up against his body, protectively, and Doumeki held the umbrella and held onto both his and Watanuki's school bags.

He gave up on the umbrella when they started digging, and they were both soaked to the skin by the time that the kitten had been buried. Doumeki's teeth were chattering when he wasn't stubbornly biting his cheek to silence it, and Watanuki was shaking next to him so hard that Doumeki could watch the spasms.

He managed to usher him into the house, and told him to take a bath, and he changed out of his sopping clothes and wrapped a blanket around himself and made ginger tea before seating himself on the tatami and waiting.

He was still shivering in sporadic intervals, although he wasn't sure that the hot bath would have helped him at this point. He felt cold in more reasons than just standing in the rain, and he suspected that it centered around the vacant look in Watanuki's eyes.

No one deserved to look like that.

No one deserved to live like that.

Watanuki barely accepted the tea before he was gone, leaving Doumeki alone with his thoughts and mud under his nails and a strange attachment for a broken, bespectled boy growing in his heart.

 

 

Doumeki awoke with a sore throat and throbbing behind his eyes, but it was all dismissed when he stepped outside the doors to head to school.

Watanuki was at the gate, looking embarrassed and irritated and a little strange, to be honest, lurking outside like he wasn't waiting on Doumeki. (Maybe he hadn't been, who knew.) There were dark smudges beneath his eyes that told stories about a lack of sleep, but even still, Watanuki'd made him a boxed lunch, probably in return for the previous night although he didn't say as much.

Doumeki studiously followed Watanuki to a deserted stairwell at lunchtime - did he always eat lunch here? - and although he could see the question of _why?_ in Watanuki's eyes, he was surprised when Watanuki didn't ask it.

Doumeki tried the food and was pleasantly - stupendously - shocked at the flavour. He went as far as stealing an extra spring roll from Watanuki's bento, and Watanuki raged and flailed and threw venomous glares towards him.

Doumeki munched on onigiri. This was good.

Much more preferable to yesterday.

He swallowed and demanded tea of his new companion, which went over about as well as he expected, but he got as much tea and conversation out of it as Watanuki did, and it wasn't so bad, for either of them, at all.

 


End file.
